About the Program

In September 2010, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism established itself as a leader in the emerging field of entrepreneurial journalism with the creation of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, funded by grants from The Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Our goal is to help create a sustainable future for quality journalism. We believe that future will be shaped by entrepreneurs who develop new business models and innovative projects – either working on their own, with startups, or within traditional media companies.

Toward that end, we are pursuing our educational mission by offering both an Advanced Certificate program for outstanding mid-career journalists, recent journalism school graduates, and other promising applicants, as well as the nation’s first Master of Arts degree in Entrepreneurial Journalism.

The one-semester Advanced Certificate program focuses on innovative approaches to journalism, business fundamentals, contemporary technology skills, and new business models for news. Students pursuing the M.A. in Entrepreneurial Journalism study the fundamentals of reporting, writing, and multimedia for three semesters and, in their fourth semester, join certificate candidates in the comprehensive Entrepreneurial Journalism course of study.

By the end of the term, each student will develop his or her own startup project, in close consultation with faculty advisers and expert mentors. On the last day of class, students present their business plans and compete for awards from the Tow-Knight Center to fund further development of their projects.

“This program aims to spark innovation and ensure the future of quality journalism,” says Jeff Jarvis, Director of the Tow-Knight Center. “We’re dedicated to training the next generation of media leaders and entrepreneurs.”

Startups we visit

Tow-Knight students visit start-ups

Through our “Startup Safari” program, fellows visit established and up-and-coming entrepreneurial media ventures in New York to draw lessons from their successes and challenges through in-person discussions with the ventures’ leaders. We provide fellows with face-to-face access to media and tech entrepreneurs that they would not likely have access to otherwise.

Apprenticeships

Learning from experience

Our apprenticeship program focuses on in-depth consultancy projects to help local journalism upstarts address current challenges. Each apprenticeship project culminates in a collaborative, conclusive oral and written report delivered to the client by a team of our fellows. Our partners have reported back that the observations, insights, and suggestions delivered by the fellows were useful and relevant to their operations. The fellows have reported developing a keener sense of the real-world, day-to-day challenges faced by startup journalism entities, which is one of the key objectives of the apprenticeship program.